You may not be familiar with the phrase motivating operations, but you have very likely seen it in action.
Applied Behavior Analysis involves looking at the impact of the environment on behavior. Scientifically speaking motivating operations are environmental variables that have the power to either increase the value of a stimulus, event or object as an effective behavior reinforcer or decrease the value of a stimulus, event or object as a behavior reinforcer.
When you first let your dog out of a crate to charge out, the two hours of sleep prior to the door opening is a type of motivating operation called an Establishing Operation that has increased the value of barking, biting and jumping at that time. When you take your dog for a long sniffing walk or for a dog play date before having guests over, those excursions are abolishing operations that decrease the value of jumping on and barking at visitors.
As your pet’s teacher, you can use these motivating operations to help your dog training be more successful. As an example, you may not want to work on teaching your dog to relax when your dog has just awoken from a nap but instead begin practicing this skill when your dog is tired. You can heighten the value of a certain food or activity by only giving access to it at certain times – like training.
Give some thought to this. How can you use motivating operations to increase the likelihood of your pet behaving in a certain way?
